Aura Blog Standing up for the Underdog

By Anne Myong,I joined Aura as Chief Financial Officer for a very simple reason.  Aura’s mission of providing affordable, credit-building loans to the underbanked resonated strongly with me.  I believe in standing up for the underdog and helping families make a better life for themselves and their children.My parents came to the United States from Korea in the mid-1950s, making me a first generation Korean-American. The immigrant story is my story.  My mother moved from Seoul, Korea, to Dallas, Texas, where she studied at Southern Methodist University.  She was seeking a better life, and a better education. My father, too, came to this country to study after the end of the Korean war.  He and my mother met in Washington, DC, where he would later study at Georgetown University’s School of Dentistry.  Together, they built a life in the United States, a family, and a dental practice in the suburbs of Northern Virginia.  They taught my siblings and I the power of an education, hard work, entrepreneurship, and encouraged us to dream big and that is exactly what we’ve done. I studied business and economics at James Madison University, and later earned an MBA at Harvard Business School. I’ve been a consultant at McKinsey & Company, an entrepreneur whose company was bought just before the dotcom crash of 2000, a corporate finance and operating executive at iconic global companies, and more recently, joined the board at Align Technology (NASDAQ: ALGN) and Goodwill Industries International.Prior to joining Aura Financial, I had the opportunity to serve as the CFO of Walmart’s Global eCommerce business to help transform Walmart into a leading omni-channel retailer.  Before that, I lived in Beijing and Shenzhen for eight years and served as CFO for Walmart’s retail business with over 400 retail sites and over 100,000 employees across China. As a leader of one of the leading retail businesses in China, I oversaw Walmart’s financial services business offering co-branded credit cards, stored value cards and other financial products. This experience leading large organizations through growth and transformation at scale has been some of the most rewarding work in my life.But now I’m ready to move back into the world of high-growth startups.  As I enter this new chapter, I look forward to playing a meaningful role in scaling Aura across the country and building a strong, profitable business that serves and support communities in all 50 states.  This is about more than business for me.  It’s about supporting families that are often ignored and overlooked.  It’s about helping borrowers achieve financial independence. And it’s about helping them become educated consumers so they can achieve their dreams and their long-term financial goals.In many ways, this role for me brings full circle a journey that began 70 years ago when my parents made the incredibly brave and difficult decision to leave their homeland and start a new life here in America.  I’m excited to join Aura, where I hope to find alignment in purpose, personal values and mission, in a business where we can positively affect people’s lives.  Let’s get started! Permalink